Ghetto Grain Mill

[jhsbaker]

Ok, I don't have great woodworking skills, but I still had a shot at it...

My 18V cordless drill is a bit short on horsepower for this.... I had to put onto high setting and partly squeeze trigger to turn at low RPM.

What do you think of my crush? I have it set at a little over 1mm gap.

 

[Killer Brew]

Ha. That is ghetto as! Love it. Looks good to me.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Crush could be better. Needs more flour in it

 

[jhsbaker]

some photos of different gap sizes (measured using a spark plug gap tool)

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I would even close it to .9mm and see how it goes. Just go nice and slow when you do

 

[Killer Brew]

some photos of different gap sizes (measured using a spark plug gap tool)

Which of these is the ideal?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

.97mm is getting close

 

[jhsbaker]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll update on how my efficiency is.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

A good crush is up to 30% flour with as many whole husks as possible

 

[Yob]

What sort of system? If BIAB you can go a higher % of flour..

 

[QldKev]

I've run my mill at 0.9mm since I started with BIAB, then 3V and also my 1V. Crush as fine as you can without getting a stuck mash.

 

[Exile]

I just use a CD to adjust my grain mill gap, seems to work well

 

[jhsbaker]

Adjusted to 0.9mm. Any risk of stuck spare?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

What are the husks like. You may need to open it up a touch.

 

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

The crush may be too coarse in the above photos, but you can always run it back through the mill again (like I have done).

I used to use a coffee grinder to mill my grain. It always ground it into a medium coarse flour (which is perfect for BIAB)

 

[Crusty]

Adjusted to 0.9mm. Any risk of stuck spare?

There's always a risk of a stuck sparge even with a coarser crush.
It depends on your false bottom & how brave you wish to be with throttling back your pumps ball valve.
You need to try & find the balance between too much & too little flow. There's a lot of flour in there & that would be great if you were doing Biab but it looks a little too fine for re-circ for me. Not saying it won't work but go easy on the suction through the false bottom.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Good point Crusty

There is no no single crush that suits everything.

Different systems can handle different crush's.

High % flour works in BAIB, but is a real bitch in a standard type mash & sparge setup.

If its to coarse it take longer to mash and eff can drop

You want to keep as much whole husk as possible

Also have a search for "grain wetting" or more correctly, grain moistening.

 

[jhsbaker]

Picture below with 2 passes through mill at 0.9mm. I mash/sparge in Eski with copper manifold.

 

[Crusty]

Picture below with 2 passes through mill at 0.9mm. I mash/sparge in Eski with copper manifold.

I think you'll be ok, but as I said before, don't open your ball valve full throttle when doing a vorlauf in your case.
Just take it easy & open your ball valve slightly & open it up a bit more when your pretty sure it won't get stuck.
I've had a few stuck sparges with my old igloo cooler mashtun when being a bit too rushed. It's a bitch when you get one but it's not the end of the day either.
I think from memory I just did a single pass @0.9mm & it was perfectly fine on most occasions. I'm crushing much wider open now with the BM & the MiniMill & happily sitting @79% brewhouse efficiency.

 

[labels]

Not all malts have the same size and shape grains. Some are long and skinny, others are shorter and fatter so finding a compromise is hard.

Dampening the grain slightly with a spray bottle softens the husks and keeps them whole allowing for a finer crush. There is a trick to doing this and doing it incorrectly will result in a poor crush. But done right it will increase efficiency and you give you better lautering.